i L i n d . n e t

My old friend Chuck (Of Two Minds Blog) is always good for a provocative thought or two. Today’s no exception as he muses about the unthinkable–maybe the rest of us would be better off if we just let all those insolvent banks and investment firms slide into bankruptcy? That woke me up faster than the [...]

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A Washington Post story yesterday on an investigation into the email attack that spread the false rumor that Barack Obama has a background as a radical Muslim had an interesting Hawaii link. The story identifies Andrew Walden, a Big Island resident and publisher of the ultra-conservative Hawaii Free Press, as one of the first writers [...]

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Andy Parx, in a comment here yesterday, questioned my assessment of this week’s Supreme Court decision on Hawaii’s experiment in publicly financed elections passed by the legislature this year.
Any wrote:
I don’t think you’re reading this right Ian. It has nothing to do with full public financing laws- or for that matter any public financing laws [...]

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Ballot Access News had a slightly different take on the impact of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in its initial review.
This language should make it easier to win lawsuits against state public funding laws which set unequal rewards for some candidates, relative to other candidates. Public funding laws in Maine, Arizona, and New Mexico, treat all [...]

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The Supreme Court today struck down a federal law that attempted to offset the advantage of wealthy candidates who finance their own campaigns by giving benefits, including higher contribution limits, to their opponents.
I haven’t yet read the decision itself, but initial news reports indicate that the court soundly rejected the idea of “leveling the playing [...]

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I was sitting at a small desk in the Land Use Commission office yesterday afternoon reading through some old documents when my cell phone rang. It was the wife of a friend we’ve known and kept in contact with for about 20 years.
She was crying.
“He’s sick. He’s really sick, and he didn’t want [...]

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Thanks to Gordon Pang for his story in today’s Advertiser providing more details on Bumpy Kanahele’s Hawaiian con-con design.
Christy Martin, public information officer for the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, sent over a commentary regarding Gov. Lingle’s intention to veto a bill authorizing an inspection fee on incoming cargo. Martin writes:
The Coordinating Group on [...]

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Try wrapping your brain around this assessment of Hawaii’s energy future (”Hawaii: Peak Oil Canary in a Coal Mine“). Both the essay and the more than 100 comments make challenging reading.
For example:
Hawaii’s biggest industry is its tourist industry. It seems likely to me that Hawaii’s tourist industry will largely disappear in the next few years, [...]

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